How to embed a Wistia Video into an email

How to add a Wistia video to your email campaign

In this tutorial you will learn how to create, configure and send a Video Email that plays automatically at the moment the email is opened, using a video source file from Wistia.

Playable makes it quick and easy to embed video content hosted with Wistia within your email campaigns, it’s designed for use by marketers with who want to evolve their email campaigns and enjoy significant uplifts in audience response and engagement.

Video emails by Playable are mobile, tablet and desktop friendly and can be sent using all the popular email platforms.

1. Create your Playable Account

If you are new to Playable you can create a new account. All new accounts are offered the opportunity to test drive the platform with 1,000 free plays per month.

You can upgrade your plan or purchase extra plays as needed.

2. Create your Video Email

To create your video email click the “Add Video” button at the head of the page.

3. Video Title

Enter a Video Title for the Video you are creating, this will help identify the Video later in Reporting

4. Locate your video content on Wistia

Login to your Wistia account and navigate to your Video Projects where all the Videos you have hosted on Wistia are listed.

Select the Video you wish to embed in your email.

5. Copy the Wistia URL

Select “Embed and Share” from the Video Actions drop down.

Select the “Link in Email” tab and then copy the “links to” url.

It’s not necessary to change any of the other selections above this link.

6. Upload your Video from Wistia to Playable

To upload your Video to Playable simply paste the “Link to URL” you copied from Wistia in step 6 above. Once you have pasted the URL into the space provided click the “Apply” button to upload your Wistia video file.

7. Edit your Video

Your video is now ready for editing. Our editor is designed to enable you to create a 10 second video from the full-length video you uploaded. It is this 10 seconds that will be published in your video email. In the editor you can crop the video to focus on your key content and select multiple clips to make up the 10 seconds.

As you are creating your video email the editor will show you the duration of each clip and allow you to preview the edit and re edit until you are happy with your final cut. For a full preview of our editor features visit our Editor Page

To ensure your video fits perfectly into the allocated spot of your email template you can select the width and height that you’d like the final video to be published at. Once you have your final cut click “Continue”.

8. Enhance your Video Email

You are now ready to add any enhancements to your video email including captions, a watermark, endcard or footer. Simply select the enhancements you wish to add and follow the onscreen prompts to add your chosen enhancements. You can also add a link to where any clickers on the video should be re directed, this will generally be the page where the hull video is hosted. You now have completed creating your video email so click the “Compile” button.

Playable now compiles this video email creating over a hundred versions which will be used to ensure each recipient receives the video file most suitable for their device, bandwidth and connection.

9. Video Email has been created

Your video email has been successfully compiled so now it’s time to start thinking about placing this video within your email template. The first step in this process is to select the email platform you are going to use to send your video email campaign.

Playable works with all the popular email platforms, you can see a list of the platforms we are integrated with here, from where you will be able to find a guide on how to embed your Wistia Video into your email template. In this tutorial we are using SendGrid as our preferred email platform.

Select SendGrid as the email platform that you are using to send your campaign from the drop down options.Once you have selected SendGrid a second drop down will appears which is labeled “Select Campaign”. You should ignore this as this is only used when you are importing your Playable video into the SendGrid editor.

10. Copy the Playable HTML

To embed your video into your SendGrid template you will need to paste the Playable HTML into the SendGrid templates HTML.

To do this Click the “Copy to clipboard” button in the top right hand corner of the pane where the HTML code is shown.

11. Paste the Playable HTML into your SendGrid Editor

Locate where you wish the Video to appear within your HTML template. By placing your cursor over any existing images in the template this will highlight the HTML corresponding to this in the HTML editor in the left column.

12. Paste the Playable HTML where you wish the Video to feature within your Template

Having identified the position in the template you wish to position the Playable video, delete any HTML which corresponds to any image you are replacing and then paste the Playable HTML in the section where you deleted the image tag.

Click the Settings tab on the left had side of the screen to complete the set up of your SendGrid Campaign.

Add your recipient list to the campaign and your test email addresses, proceed to test your mailing. Remember you have 1,000 Free plays included per month, to help you test the video email.

You are now ready to send either immediately or by scheduling using the SendGrid scheduling feature.

Seeing is believing

Send yourself a video email campaign from a selection of recent campaigns below.

Playable creates 10 second clips of videos which are configured to play on any device and any connection automatically at the moment the email is opened, and can be sent using any of the popular email service providers.